Note: The article contains affiliate links. If you click on a link, we may get a small commission (generally just a few cents) to help us run the site.
Long car trips can be tough if you’ve got a child on the autism spectrum. It gets boring and they just want to get to wherever you are going. Or what about long wait times at restaurants to get your food?
Distraction can be a lifesaver in these circumstances. One thing that can help is to create a sensory box for your child. It doesn’t need to be fancy, just entertaining. You can use items that are around the house or purchase items. The key thing is to keep the sensory box as your “ace in the hole”, so don’t pull it out all the time or it loses its “special” label and isn’t as entertaining.
First you need to decide what items your child likes best. Does he like things that he can hold in his hand? How about smells or textures? Does he like watching things move back and forth?
What Do You Put in the Sensory Box?
Next you need a box to put everything in. It should be small, lap sized. In the example above, the box was an old greeting card box. Now you need to decide what to put in the box. A variety of items works best. Don’t put anything sharp in the box and make sure everything is age appropriate so you don’t have to keep a constant watch on your child to make sure they don’t choke on anything.
Types of items you can include:
- Textures – Rough, smooth, bumpy, soft, hard
- Scented – Something scratch and sniff, scented soap
- Manipulatives (Things to hold in hand) – Fidget spinner, fidget cube, stringing/lacing items
- Motion – Bubble timer, googly eyes, bag filled with colored beads/beans that they can move back and forth
- Shapes – Things in different shapes, picking items with different shapes
- Mirror – Little ones love to look at themselves in a mirror
Textures
There are many different textures you can use in your sensory box – soft, hard, rough, smooth and bumpy. If there are more than one in a pack, I’d recommend only including one of each and changing them out every so often. This cuts down on taking up too much space and gives them something new occasionally. Textured items you could include: textured multi ball set, hedgehog rings, scraps of drawer liner, fine sandpaper (don’t use regular or coarse as it could be too rough on little fingers), thick yarn (in the example above, many different colors and thicknesses were tied together that a little one could run their fingers through), scrap of laminate (just make sure the edges aren’t sharp) or carpet, squishies, small plush toy, sponge (cut off a corner before using a new one), or stress balls.
Scented
If your child has any allergies to anything scented or doesn’t particularly like most scents, I would skip this one. However if this is not the case, one thing you could do for scented is to purchase scratch and sniff stickers. I would recommend putting a few with different scents on an index card. This way when they are scratched up or lose their scent all you have to do is remove that one and put in a new one. You could also include perfume samples. You could also cut a piece off of the end of a scented soap bar.
Manipulatives and Motion
In many cases manipulatives and motion go hand in hand, simply because many manipulatives involve motion. Fidget spinners (our son’s favorite), fidget cubes, lacing cards (I recommend cards instead of beads since they are smaller and take up less room in your box – they are also good for learning hand-eye coordination), bubble timers, a bag filled with colored beads/beans that they can move back and forth, old keys that you don’t need anymore on a key ring, baby links, snake cube twist toy (link for multipack since it is only a few dollars more than for 1), action figure, silicone wisk, bean bag, or an old remote control (with the batteries removed).
Shapes
Basically you can incorporate shapes into many of the items above simply by how you cut the scraps or things or by their natural shape. For circles you could cut scraps of fabrics (even old bed sheets or towels that have started fraying on the edges) and poke a hole in the corner with a hole punch and place them on a key ring. You could also use an empty toilet paper roll for circle. When you cut your laminate, carpet or sponge textures they will most likely be either square or rectangular shaped. Large stencils of shapes make it easy to cut other shapes if you are cutting challenged like I am. You could also purchase stickers in various shapes and put them on index cards and write the shape name under them to help you child learn how to spell the shapes as well.
Keeping Costs Down
Amazon has several sensory multi-packs that have items you can include in your sensory box that give you a variety of items instead of one specific type. This is a way you could have a bunch of items included and keep your cost down.
